


Five Times Matt Touched Foggy's Face

by clarinetta



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Friendship, Gen, Violence, discussion of disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-26 13:51:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3853069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarinetta/pseuds/clarinetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy told Karen he'd only let Matt touch his face once "because--weird", but it's not precisely true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> concrit welcome, if you're into that sort of thing!

“Foggy.”

Another cough, identical to the coughs that have been rattling in his chest for the past several days now. The cold has settled in deep, and Matt is pretty sure that he would be able to pick up the creaking congestion in his friend’s chest even without his extra-sensitive hearing. He’s been trying to block it out in order to sleep, but none of his usual tricks seem to be working tonight.

Aiming his voice toward the desk where Foggy is studying, Matt says his name again, a little louder. “Foggy.”

“I know, man, I know,” Foggy croaks, apologetic. “Sorry. I already ate like, fifteen cough drops today, if I take anymore I’ll probably have some kind of seizure or–” His words catch in his throat and he’s off again, hacking up long, deep, ragged lungfuls of air. Matt winces at the sound. After a long minute, Foggy finally gets his breathing under control and closes his notebook with a quiet flutter of loose pages. The slight breeze reaches Matt, carrying the heavy smell of Foggy’s sickness with it. Foggy’s chair scrapes against the floor.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna go study in the library,” Foggy answers. He sounds so tired. “You got stuff to do tomorrow, I don’t want to keep you up.”

“Fogs, don’t be stupid, just go to bed,” Matt says, exasperated.

“Oh, that’s super rich, coming from Mr. I-Don’t-Stop-Studying-Until-I-Literally-Faint-With-Pneumonia,” Foggy snaps. Then he sighs. “Sorry. That came out mean. I’m going now.”

Matt counts exactly three footsteps toward the door before Foggy stumbles. “Shit.” There’s a soft thud–Foggy resting his head on the wall, maybe.

“Foggy?”

“I’m fine,” he croaks through gritted teeth, which is how Matt knows he’s really not.

Matt climbs out from under his comforter and feels his way around the wall until he reaches Foggy. This close, it’s impossible not to hear his friend’s heartbeat, skittering in his chest like he’s just run a 5k. “Now you really do sound like me.” He crooks a sideways smile that he hopes is self-deprecating. It works; Foggy huffs out a congested laugh.

“Seriously though, buddy,” Matt says, sobering a little, “I can feel the fever coming off you.” He reaches out, finds Foggy’s shoulder, slides his fingers up, turns his hand over to feel Foggy’s cheek with the backs of his fingers, like his father used to do. “I’m guessing it’s at least…” He traces around Foggy’s temple and rests his knuckles over Foggy’s too-warm forehead. “At least a hundred and one,” he pronounces with a frown.

“You’re a human thermometer now?” Foggy mumbles, but he lets Matt take his books from him. Matt hums in placid agreement as he grips Foggy’s shoulders and turns him toward his bed, shoving gently. “All right, all right,” Foggy mutters. “I’m going, I’m getting in bed, you can chill. I’m not making any promises on the coughing, though.”

“Okay, Foggy.” Matt stands still until he hears Foggy click the bedside lamp off, then climbs back into bed, smiling to himself.


	2. Blood

“Oh come _onnnnnnn_ , Foggy,” Matt whines, the alcohol rushing through his blood drawing out the syllables.

“ _You_ are the one that picked Truth, Mr. Mur- _dick_.” He snorts at the well-worn joke like it’s the first time he’s said it, instead of the hundredth. They are lying on the floor of their shared dorm room side by side, the relief of the end of exam week flooding the whole campus, as evidenced by the way the entire dorm seems to be seething with life and drunken laughter and off-key singing. Matt props his feet up against Foggy’s bed frame and rests his head comfortably in the net of his fingers.

“Come _onnnnnn_ , Matty.” Foggy does a passable imitation of Matt’s whine and hits him in the shoulder with the back of his hand. “I just wanna know if you’re as good a Catholic as you seem. Tell me,” he goads when Matt just grins in response. He starts poking Matt in the ribs in time with his words, making Matt giggle and jerk away. “Tell me tell me tell me tellmetellmetellmetell–”

“All right!” Matt yells. “No, I’m not a virgin! Happy?”

Foggy’s laughter is bright and delighted. “HA! I knew it!” He pushes himself up so he’s leaning against the bed and yanks Matt up with him, who follows dizzily. “I _knew_ it,” Foggy repeats, smacking Matt in the chest for emphasis. “You are on the fast track to the–uh–which circle of hell is sex out of wedlock?”

“Third,” Matt snorts, though he has no idea.

“That one,” Foggy pronounces emphatically. He whacks Matt one last time with the back of his hand.

“Cut it out!” Matt gasps. They’re both breathless from laughing. Matt strikes back, the solid thud of open hand against chest indicating he hit his target.

“Ow!” Foggy’s return blow is hard and fast, softened a little by drunken giggles. And–maybe it’s the alcohol that makes Matt aim wrong, maybe it’s instinct, he’ll never really know–but when he swings, his fingers make a fist, and he hits Foggy square in the nose.

At first they’re both still laughing–Matt apologizes through his giggles and Foggy waves it off (”I just waved my hand vaguely, I barely felt a thing, it’s cool,” he narrates). But after a minute, Matt picks up a sharp metallic tang in the air, new and wet and getting stronger. “Uh, Foggy?” Matt reaches for Foggy’s face, aims a little wrong and hits long hair instead. With a frustrated sound he runs his fingers sideways until he finds Foggy’s cheekbone and traces it to his nose. His fingers come away wet. “That’s blood, right?”

“Oh shit, yeah,” Foggy exclaims with a laugh. “I didn’t even notice.”

“Hang on,” Matt says and jumps up quickly (a little too quickly–he has to take a moment to steady himself against the bed) and feels around the desk for the box of Kleenex. When he finds it, he yanks out a handful and drops back down to Foggy, who is still chuckling to himself. “Here.” Matt shoves the Kleenex toward Foggy’s face and misses once again.

“Got me in the eye that time,” Foggy jokes. “I got it.” He takes the Kleenex from Matt.

Matt feels his face heat up with embarrassment and guilt. “Shit, Fogs,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh come on, nuh-uh,” Foggy scolds him. Matt feels Foggy’s hand clumsily grabbing his sleeve, and he lets Foggy pull him over so they’re sitting side by side again, this time squished up against each other. Foggy continues the scolding. “You are not allowed to feel guilty about this, you get me? I have forgiven you. See, God?” Foggy yells toward the ceiling. “I just made the sign of the cross over you. You’re forgiven. Forget it.”

“That was probably blasphemous somehow.” Matt lets a tentative smile creep onto his face.

“Oh, what do you know,” Foggy says absently. “See? Already stopped bleeding. Well, okay, I shouldn’t have said _see_ –here–” He grabs Matt’s hand and places it on his face, right under his nose. He’s right; no more blood. The metallic taste is mostly gone from the air, too. Matt relaxes and leans into Foggy, resting his head on Foggy’s broad shoulder.

“I’m still sorry.”

“Uh-huh.” There’s a comfortable silence, and then– “How’d you know I was bleeding?”

Matt’s heart stutters and trips in his chest. “Smelled it,” he says as casually as he can.

“You can smell blood?” Foggy sounds interested rather than disbelieving, and Matt’s heart slows down a fraction.

“Mm. If I’m close enough. I’ve got a sensitive nose.”

“So can you smell girls when they’re on their, you know–”

“ _Foggy_!” He jabs Foggy in the side, but they’re both laughing again, and Matt relaxes, ignoring the little niggle of guilt in the back of his mind at keeping his secret from Foggy for so long. He’ll have to tell him eventually. And he will.

Just. Not now.


	3. Tears

“Marci.”

Matt hears her heart stutter and the blood rush to her cheeks. 

“Matt.” Spoken through gritted teeth as she walks toward him, heels clicking menacingly, louder than everyone else that pushes past him in the crowded hallway. “How did you know it was me?”

“I can smell that perfume you take a bath in across campus,” Matt answers shortly. “We need to talk.”

Her heart rate jerks again–her throat clicks as she swallows once, twice. “Of course. Shall we go somewhere more private?” She takes his elbow, but, planting his cane firmly in front of him, he pulls away from her grip. Her fake nails grate against his jacket, an ugly sound.

“Right here’s fine.”

“Okay, Murdock,” she snips. In a split second, she drops her polite affectations and moves neatly into business mode, all clipped words and barely controlled impatience. “What is it? I’ve got class in ten.”

“I know what you’re doing.”

“Uh… Standing here waiting for you to make a point?”

“Don’t bother lying about it, Marci.” She swallows again. Her heart is hammering so loud and so fast that Matt wonders briefly if anyone else passing by can hear it. He takes a deliberate step toward her, so close that the tips of his shoes bump into the toes of her pumps. “Foggy loves you, which makes him blinder than me here. You’ve been so obvious about it I can’t believe he hasn’t noticed. And yeah, I know you think that just because I’m blind I can’t see right through you. You’re wrong. You’re cheating on my best friend, and it stops today.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lie. Not that it matters. “Either you tell him today, Marci, or I will. I get out of Spanish at 8:30, so. You have until then.”

He secretly relishes the sound of her heart pounding as he walks away from her.

–

As soon as Matt opens the door to their shared dorm room, he hears a panicked crinkling of papers, the thud of a foot connecting with the floor.

“Shit.”

“Foggy?”

“Don’t come in yet, I–kinda–hang on–”

Matt cocks his head in confusion but raises his hands, palms up, cane held between two fingers. “Not coming in. What, did you move the furniture around?”

“No, I, uh.” Foggy’s voice, oddly muffled, moves quickly around the room. “My books and stuff are all over the floor. Okay, you can come in now.” Matt steps over the threshold and closes the door behind him.

“What happened?” he asks, though he already knows.

Foggy sighs, a little shakily, and Matt realizes that his voice sounded muffled before because he had been crying. “Marci cheated on me, so I told her to fuck off.” He sniffles a little; Matt’s heart drops to his feet.

“Oh, Foggy.”

“Yeah. So, that happened,” Foggy said with false brightness and a desperate laugh.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I know.”

He sounds dangerously close to tears, so Matt pounds his cane on the floor dramatically. “So, how drunk are we getting?”

Foggy snorts. “It’s Tuesday.”

“Oh, come on, live a little!” He hits Foggy’s leg with his cane. “Aren’t you always the one telling me I need to take a night off? Let’s get, uh–crunk? Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

Foggy laughs again, and it’s genuine this time. “Stop trying to be hip, Matty. You sound like my grandpa.” Glass clinks as Foggy opens the minifridge, and the bottle he puts in Matt’s outstretched hand is cold and damp.

–

Three beers and two shots of tequila each later, Foggy says, without a trace of a slur, “I hate her.” It’s soft, muffled by the comforter he threw over his face ten minutes ago, but Matt’s hearing is distressingly perfect. Matt closes his eyes. (There are some moments, like this one, where he still hopes that closing his eyes and opening them again will yield some result other than awful, endless blackness. It never does.) “No, seriously,” Foggy continues. “I thought that my most hated person would forever be Professor Simmons for giving me that B minus last year, but like, I would honestly wine and dine and marry him if it meant I never had to think about Marci Stahl again.”

“I believe you,” Matt replies, and he does.

–

Two more shots and Matt is almost asleep with his head on Foggy’s knee when he hears the smallest voice he’s ever heard from Foggy: “What’s wrong with me, Matty?”

“What?”

“I mean–” There’s a sniffle and a shaky breath before Foggy pulls himself together enough to speak– “I mean, there must have been something she wasn’t–that I wasn’t doing right, you know? Is there something about me that makes me cheat-on-able? Am I just–”

“Foggy.”

“No, seriously,” Foggy insists. “I wanna know. I gotta fix it for next time.”

“Foggy, stop it.” Matt drags himself up to lean against the wall beside Foggy. “It’s not your fault. She’s the one who fucked up, not you.”

“I’m shaking my head right now, Matt.” There are definitely tears in his voice this time. Matt drags his hand up Foggy’s arm, across his collarbone, reaches for his cheek. Foggy’s tears slide over Matt’s fingers. Matt thumbs them away as best he can, and maybe he’s crying a little bit too, because his throat has closed up against his will and he can’t think of anything to say that would make it better.

Foggy whispers, “Fuck.” And he finally comes crashing into Matt’s shoulder, and Matt hugs him as he silently shakes apart.


	4. Family

The first time Matt thinks about asking, he dismisses the thought immediately. It’s only a few weeks into their first semester, and despite their initial connection, the whirlwind that is the first semester of college sweeps them both up with unforgiving vigor, leaving them both, for the most part, too exhausted to do much talking once they finally manage to make it back to the room and collapse into bed. And Foggy is good at making friends in a way that Matt has never been; he’s already been invited to several parties at the frat houses, despite being a freshman with no special interest in joining a fraternity. (Matt has been handed one paper invitation by an overexcited, overstressed girl who nearly started crying and ran away when she realized what she’d just done.)

It makes perfect sense not to ask, so Matt doesn’t.

\--

The second time Matt thinks about asking, he considers it a little longer. They’re halfway through the spring semester of freshman year and discussing next year’s living arrangements. Foggy reads his copy of the form out loud, since the school’s only Braille printer had finally, after a long and productive life, broken down for the last time two days previous and the new one hasn’t arrived yet.

“Looks like the best grades get first pick on the on-campus apartments, as long as you have a roommate already picked out,” Foggy finishes. “Good thing we’re both geniuses, right?” He taps Matt on the shoulder with the pen he’s been chewing on, and Matt grins. “So on-campus seems like a pretty good option, yeah?” he continues. “It’s cheaper and way closer to classes, so that eliminates any issue getting around in the cars we don’t have...”

Foggy’s voice rattles on, but Matt isn’t listening anymore--he’s stuck on the “we” that Foggy had just thrown out so casually, with no hesitation. Despite their growing friendship, Matt is under no delusions that he’s particularly easy to live with, even given the extra abilities Foggy doesn’t know about. He’s made other friends, too, but none close enough to consider moving in with, and Foggy, as popular and outgoing as he is, has his pick of the litter. But here Foggy is, just assuming they would make it work, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. A smile creeps over Matt’s face, unbidden.

“What’re you grinning at?” Foggy asks, and elbows Matt in the ribs.

 _I wonder what he looks like_ , Matt thinks. _I wonder if he would let me find out_. “Nothing,” Matt chuckles, elbowing back.

\--

The third time, they are both drunk and Matt just plain chickens out.

He thought it might be easier to ask drunk, but it isn’t.

\--

The fourth time, they’re a few weeks into their internship at Langman and Zack, squashed together in a tiny basement closet of a room with no air conditioning and no windows to speak of (which doesn’t bother Matt but annoys Foggy to no end). Technically they live in different apartments now, but they spend so many long nights working at the firm that sometimes it still feels like college.

It’s a chilly Saturday night, and Matt walks closer to Foggy than he really needs to, holding Foggy’s elbow automatically as they walk out of Foggy’s new favourite bar, a grimy little place called Josie’s. They’re both pleasantly tipsy but not too far gone, both too exhausted from another long week of work to get crazy.

“Wanna just crash at my place?” Foggy asks with a heavy yawn. “It’s way closer.”

“That’s all right.”

“Aren’t they still doing early morning construction like, right next door to you?”

Matt grimaces. “Good point.”

“Sleepover!” Foggy shouts into the wind, pumping the arm Matt is holding into the air. Matt laughs and marvels for what feels like the millionth time at the brightness in his own voice. Before Foggy, he never could have imagined feeling this content, this _light_ , in the presence of anyone at all. But Foggy--he’s always radiated friendliness, always treated Matt like a person instead of a china doll, always made Matt smile until his cheeks hurt. When he’s alone, the black evil corners of the city have started to close in on him more and more, and he spends more and more time tossing and turning than sleeping anymore, trying to block out the sirens and the wailing and the death and the sadness. With Foggy next to him, everything feels warmer, a little less sinister.

(Matt wonders what it’s like being a human sun.)

Despite their exhaustion, they stay up far later than intended, splayed out on opposite ends of Foggy’s couch, talking about everything and nothing. Conversation putters out around 3:30 according to Matt’s watch, and Matt listens contentedly to Foggy’s heart rate slow as he drops into a light doze. He thinks about how important Foggy is, how integral he’s become in Matt’s life, and decides to finally ask.

“Hey Foggy.”

“Hmm.”

“What do you look like?”

“What?” Foggy struggles to wake up. “I’ve told you.”

“Yeah, I mean.” Matt screws up his face, trying to find the least awkward way of asking for what he wants. “I-I’ve got an idea, but I don’t, um. I haven’t felt it.”

“Oh,” Foggy says, and his heart rate spikes a little as he realizes what Matt is asking. “I thought the whole face-touching thing was a myth.”

“Kind of,” Matt says. “It’s not as common as people think by any means, and a lot of blind people don’t get anything out of it. It’s pretty much reserved for close friends and family. Which,” and Matt’s far too sober to say this but he says it anyway, “you are my family. Basically.”

There’s a short silence; Matt feels a strange warmth coming from Foggy and knows Foggy is blushing. “Um, sure, okay,” Foggy says after a moment. They both sit up cross-legged on the couch, facing each other, knees bumping together. Matt raises his hands with an apologetic, awkward smile, reaches out with slightly shaky fingers, and accidentally sticks his finger up Foggy’s nose.

It breaks the tension instantly and both of them laugh themselves nearly senseless before starting again, still chuckling. Foggy takes Matt’s wrist and guides him the second time, placing Matt’s hand over his right cheek before letting go and going still. Matt feels Foggy’s cheek twitching with suppressed giggles under his fingers. He traces his way back to hit the ridge of Foggy’s ear before moving up along his hairline; the pad of his thumb runs over Foggy’s eyebrows. Bringing his other hand up, he matches the movements on the left side of Foggy’s face, bringing his thumbs together over the bridge of his nose. His fingers flutter lightly over closed eyelashes and down over broad cheekbones before tracing Foggy’s dry, chapped lips and jawline.

When Matt finishes, he drops his hands and smiles awkwardly again. “Sorry,” he says. “Was that weird?”

“Eh. I just shrugged, by the way. Yeah, weird, but not bad-weird.”

“Good.”

They talk a little longer before both of them drop off on the couch. Matt is almost asleep when he hears Foggy murmur, so quietly that he only picks up on it because of his sensitive hearing, “You’re my family too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer, i kinda stole and twisted how college living arrangements work from the place i went as a freshman, i have no idea how it works anywhere else.


	5. Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING FOR VIOLENCE/THE AFTERMATH OF VIOLENCE

It happens when he is not watching for it, which is an anomaly in itself. He chastises himself later, with bitter humor: it’s in the name. Vigilante. He’s supposed to be watchful at all times, or in his case, listening at all times: attentive, alert, observant. Vigilant.

Of course, the worst happens when he turns his attention for one minute.

He and Foggy are pulling a late night at the office, just the two of them (having sent poor exhausted Karen home around eleven), grinding out research for their newest cases. It’s well past midnight when Foggy stretches and announces that he is going for coffee and donuts before he passes out on the floor. Matt offers to fetch the snacks in his place, since it’s his turn (it isn’t, but he’s still trying to make up for hurting Foggy in any way he can); Foggy assures him he’ll be fine, he needs a walk around the block anyway. Matt nods and listens to Foggy stump down the steps and out the door before returning his attention to the law book playing in his earbuds.

Twenty minutes later, Matt comes out of his audio book-induced doze and realizes that his is still the only heartbeat in the room. In an instant, he yanks out his earbuds and scrambles to the open window to listen to the streets for Foggy’s footfall. He does not hear it and nearly panics, but focuses again, harder this time, listening for anything out of place.

There. Down a side alley two streets away, the sick slam of steel-toed boots hitting ribs, breath being driven out of lungs. The scent of spilled coffee and sugared dough mixed with the grime on the pavement; a familiar heartbeat, fluttering in terror and pain.

Foggy.

He barely notices what he’s doing until he’s swinging from the ledge of the second story window. He lets go, hits the ground, rolls, runs so hard he almost somersaults over himself at first. Pinpointing the sound, he hangs a sharp right, and yes--there, a group of five finishing up kicking the living shit out of Foggy, who just lies there in a crumpled heap, barely conscious. Unmoving.

Matt moves in. They weren’t expecting him so it’s over relatively quickly, three knocked easily to the ground before all five of them start to scramble and flee. Matt forces himself not to give chase and falls to his knees beside Foggy instead, breathing hard.

“Foggy,” he whispers. He’s afraid to touch him, afraid to listen to his heart, afraid that he has come too late. His hands hover over Foggy, trembling. “Fogs.”

“You might wanna call an ambulance now,” Foggy murmurs thickly through what Matt assumes is a mouthful of blood, given the taste of copper in the air is so strong it makes him want to gag. Foggy grips Matt’s hand with clumsy fingers and drags it down until it hits something sharp and heavy protruding from Foggy’s side. A knife, oh, god. There’s a knife in Foggy’s side.

“Shit,” Matt gasps.

“Ambulance,” Foggy croaks. “Now-ish would be good.”

“Right.” Matt fumbles for his phone, fingers already sticky with blood. He calls 911 and describes every injury he can decipher--broken ribs screeching every time Foggy moves, a concussion rattling loudly in Foggy’s skull, the knife. The knife.

The woman on the other end assures him that an ambulance will be with them as soon as possible and to keep pressure around the knife wound, but not to try taking it out. Matt puts the phone on the ground and closes his hands around the knife, pressing down hard. Foggy groans, but it’s a weak sound that scares Matt badly. “Foggy?” He tries to keep the panic out of his voice. “Foggy, you gotta stay with me, buddy.”

“Didn’t think you were comin,” Foggy mumbles, and oh, that pierces Matt down to his rotten core. Doesn’t Foggy know he’s the most important thing in Matt’s whole godforsaken life?

Matt wills his voice not to falter. “I’m right here.”

“Mmm.”

Foggy’s heartbeat starts to fade, becomes irregular, and Matt pushes harder against Foggy’s stomach, trying to force the bleeding to stop. “Foggy? Foggy, wake up, you gotta stay with me. Talk to me, tell me something.”

“Like what?” Foggy’s voice is barely a wheeze.

“Anything. Tell me what kind of donuts you got me.”

Foggy chuckles wetly.

“Jelly filled. Strawberry. I think. Hey, Matty?”

“Yeah, buddy, I’m here.”

“How close are they?”

Matt turns his attention to the siren sounds blanketing the whole city and pinpoints one nearby, rushing toward them at a very illegal speed.

“Almost here,” he assures Foggy.

“Good.” And then Foggy passes out completely, his head rolling loose to the side.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Matt growls. He keeps one hand around the knife and reaches up with the other, feeling for Foggy’s cheek. He takes aim and slaps his friend in the face. It yields no response, so he does it again. The third time he cranks back his arm, he hears the ambulance finally pull up to the mouth of the alley. The EMTs drag him back and load Foggy onto a stretcher with a horribly squeaky wheel, and for a paralyzing moment, Matt can’t hear anything else; not the tightly controlled voices of the EMTs, not the siren still blaring twenty feet away, not even Foggy’s faint heartbeat. He wonders what the rest of his life will be like if the last sound he hears from Foggy is the squeaking wheel of the stretcher that carried him away forever.

As they load Foggy into the ambulance, Matt begins to pray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh. There's gonna be a +1 chapter for this fic after all? Which I didn't know until I actually started writing this chapter. Surprise!


	6. Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The +1: One time Foggy touches Matt's face.

It takes Foggy what feels like hours to finally open his eyes. He’s been fading in and out for God knows how long, unable to tell when he’s dreaming and when he’s awake. One constant, though, is a strange clicking sound on his right side, quiet but incessant. It’s familiar, but he can’t place it until he manages to force his eyes open a crack. He glances to the side and sees a familiar dark head bowed low, hands clasped around a string of rosary beads.

He tries to speak, but nothing comes out; he lifts his hand weakly instead and drops it over the edge of the bed to get Matt’s attention. It works--Matt’s head jerks up, unfocused eyes darting this way and that, wide and scared.

“Foggy?”

“Mmph,” Foggy grunts intelligently. Everything is nice and blurry, his body encased in a warm, heavy sweetness that is at odds with the fact that from what he can gather, he is lying in a hospital bed. _These must be some seriously amazing drugs_ , he thinks, and laughs at his own unspoken joke.

“Foggy, are you all right?” Foggy looks down at Matt’s hands, which are gripping the edge of his bed, and finally notices the new, fresh bruises standing out bright purple over his knuckles. He tries to focus through the drugs and examines Matt’s face, which has also clearly been injured within the past twenty-four hours.

“Could ask you the same thing,” Foggy mumbles, and taps Matt’s knuckles with a clumsy hand. Matt says nothing. He trembles just a little, like he’s wound tight enough to snap at any second. Foggy sighs. “What happened?” He knows he should know, and that it was bad, and that the memory is right there, pressing up against the dam of the drugs like a wave waiting to break.

“You got jumped,” Matt says, and Foggy cringes at the sound of the rosary beads grinding together under Matt’s tightening fists. Matt bows his head again and rocks a little, breathing deep and even for a small moment. When he’s under control again, he says, “You were stabbed. In the side. Broken ribs, concussion. Basically got the shit kicked out of you.” A desperate attempt at humor; his mouth barely quirks up before resolving back into a tense line. He’s hovering so close that Foggy can practically feel him vibrating. He looks down again at Matt’s bruised hands and back up at the new cuts across his face and, very slowly, manages to put two and two together.

“You went after them.” It’s not a question, so Matt does not provide an answer, but his silence is enough of one. He tightens his jaw and closes his eyes, and Foggy’s heart skips a beat. “How bad?” he asks, even though he doesn’t want to know.

Matt does not open his eyes. “Two are in the coma ward on the third floor,” he breathes. “Of the ones still awake... One will never walk again. I gouged the shortest one’s right eye out and kicked out the fat one’s knees. Seventeen broken bones all together.” He does not say it like a confession; he says it like a judge, reading out the charges against himself, ready to put himself on trial and hand out the death penalty. “They never saw me coming.”

“Jesus,” Foggy says under his breath. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”

Matt’s breathing starts to sound shaky. “I almost killed the one who stabbed you,” he says softly. “I could smell your blood still under his nails.”

“But you didn’t.” Foggy doesn’t know which of them needs the reassurance more.

Matt shakes his head. “I wanted to. I want to.” His face starts to crumple like paper, unsettlingly reminiscent of the day Foggy confronted him about Daredevil--he’s been stripped down to raw frayed nerves, nothing left unexposed.

Foggy knows that at some point soon, he will have to deal with his own emotional fallout from this, but right now he can’t see anything except his best friend cracking apart in front of him. “Matty,” he whispers, unable to think of anything else to say. “Matty, don’t.” He raises his hand and lays his palm flat against Matt’s cheek. Matt turns into his hand and the leash finally breaks and he’s sobbing, letting go of the mattress to grab Foggy’s fingers and squeeze. Reaching over with his other hand, Foggy grasps Matt’s shoulder and pulls him closer. Matt buries his face in Foggy’s shoulder. Foggy swipes at his own tears, strokes Matt’s hair with clumsy, drug-addled fingers.

“I’m right here,” he whispers into Matt’s ear. He remembers very little of the incident just yet (the rest of it is still there, he knows, waiting to ambush him when the drugs wear off), but what he does recall is Matt’s constant reassurance of his presence. He can only hope it will comfort Matt like it comforted him. “I’m right here. You got there in time. It’s okay. I love you. It’s okay, it’s okay.”

It’s not okay, not yet, not with a knife wound and emotional trauma and a best friend to put back together. But Foggy, even lying only half-alive in a hospital bed, knows that it will be, eventually.

As long as they’re both alive and together, everything will come out all right in the end.


End file.
